May-Britt Moser (1963 - )

A Norwegian neuroscientist, May-Britt Moser was awarded the 2014 Nobel Prize in physiology and medicine. She and her co-researchers, then-husband Edvard Moser and John O'Keerfe, discovered cells close to the hippocampus that help determine spatial representation or position. The work has been applied to neurological diseases including Alzheimer's.

The awareness of one's location and how to find the way to other places is crucial for both humans and animals. In 2005 May-Britt Moser and Edvard I. Moser discovered a type of cell that is important for determining position close to the hippocampus, an area located in the center of the brain. They found that when a rat passed certain points arranged in a hexagonal grid in space, nerve cells that form a kind of coordinate system for navigation were activated. They then went on to demonstrate how these different cell types cooperate. Source: Nobelprize.org

Known for
Grid cells

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